Recent advances in the food art, i.e. in the art of extrusion, permit the short time preparation of extruded dough products which have desirable texture, functionality (i.e. rate of hydration and hydrated texture retention rate) and certain organoleptic characteristics. However these products lack sufficient flavor. The longer-time, traditionally manufactured food products were more flavorful because the longer cooking times that were employed permitted greater development of flavor and flavor precursors through the various reactions taking place during the long cooking, drying and toasting times. For example, traditionally manufactured puffed cereal products were produced by a process which included batch cooking, tunnel drying, tempering, pelletizing and gun puffing all of which together took approximately several hours. Today's modern technological innovations permit the production of a direct-expanded cereal product in a period of time of less than one minute by direct expansion in a cooker extruder. While the two processes utilize the same ingredients, the traditional process leads to the production of a more flavorful product. Similarly, other products like flaked, cooked grains lack flavor when extruder processed.
In order to compensate for the flavor difficiencies of the modern processed foodstuffs, the food art has strived to invent new flavorants which would augment or enhance particular flavors. U.S. Pat. No. 3,615,697 issued to Hollenbeck teaches a food flavor which is prepared by fermenting malt flour with a lactic acid producing microorganism. The dried product combines malt flavor with the sour taste of lactic acid and related fermented flavors. The flavor may be added to a variety of baked goods such as bread, as well as dried, ready-to-eat cereals. More specifically, the patent discloses a process wherein cottage cheese whey is added to live lactobacillus bacteria, and thereafter malt which is then fermented to form a heat-labile, volatile flavor as an alternate process to produce sour dough bread.
It is an object of the present invention to form a concentrated food flavorant which duplicates typical cooked grain type flavors and which can be added to high temperature, short time processed foods without heat degredation to improve their taste and flavor.